Secluded in his Long Island Sound cottage, Manhattan attorney Alec Anton is enlisted by neighbor Lee Hastings for his help to find her missing son. Alec balks at first, but he is soon powerless to refuse her seductive ways--and powerless to disentangle himself from a case when the missing man turns up, his strangled corpse marked by a red carnation. Now, Alec must unravel a murder that leads to a conspiracy far bigger than anyone imagines.